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Violence Against Women in India

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Who are the women who are victimized? Who are their victimizers or the perpetrators of violence?

The problem of violence against women is not new. Women in the In­dian society have been victims of humiliation, torture and exploitation for as long as we have written records of social organization and family life. Today, women are being gradually recognized as important, power­ful and meaningful contributors to the life of men; but till a few decades back, their condition was pitiable. Ideologies, institutional practices and the existing norms in society have contributed much to their harassment. Some of these behavioural practices thrive even today.

In spite of the legislative measures adopted in favour of women in our society after In­dependence, the spread of education and women’s gradual economic independence, countless women still continue to be victims of violence. They are beaten, kidnapped, raped, burnt and murdered. It is important to clarify here the concept of ‘violence’ against women. The term ‘violence’ has been described by Gelles (1979) as “an act of striking a person with the intent of causing harm or injury but not actually causing it”. Strauss (1980) has described a violent act as “an act where there is the high potential of causing injury”.

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Domenach (1981) has described it as “an act of a person which encroaches upon the free­dom of another”. Megargee (1982) has defined violence as “the overtly threatened or overtly accomplished application of force which results in the injury or destruction of persons or their reputation”. Kempe (1982) has applied the term ‘violence’ to “physically striking an individual and causing injury”.

The operational definition of violence may be given as “force whether overt or covert, used to wrest from an individual (a woman) something that she does not want to give of her own free will and which causes her either physical injury or emotional trauma or both”. Thus rape, kidnapping, murder, wife-battering, sexual abuse, eve- teasing are all examples of violence against women.

The Police Research Bureau, Delhi has referred to “crime against women” under two categories:

(i) Crimes under the Indian Penal Code, and

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(ii) Crimes under the local and special laws (Crime in India, Na­tional Crime Records Bureau, Delhi, 1994: 209).

The Bureau has identified seven crimes in the first category and four crimes in the sec­ond category of crimes. The seven crimes under the IPC are: rape, kidnapping and abduction, homicide for dowry, torture (physical and mental), molestation, eve-teasing; and importation of girls up to 21 years of age, while the four crimes under the local and special laws are: com­mission of sati, dowry prohibition, immoral traffic, and indecent representation of women.

Who are the women who are victimized? Who are their victimizers or the perpetrators of violence? Where do the seeds of violence against women lie? Some scholars who have studied some of these aspects in western society have used the ‘personality’ approach and the ‘situ­ational’ approach to explain this problem. But both types of approaches have, however, been criticized on varied counts.